Just Stop Fighting and Laugh for a Minute

I know health care is serious, but sometimes I need to take a break from all the debate and just laugh. Craig Ferguson, late night comic, said this about the health care bill: "Yay what? What does it even mean? If you listen to the left, it means free vegan candy for every man, woman and UNICORN in America. If you listen to the right it means we've been enslaved by socialist overlords and apple pie is now ILLEGAL! Well, I'm not listening to either side, because I'm too busy listening to Lady Gaga! All I know is this is still America. I can own a gun and say whatever I want and no one can make me wear pants, so I'm good."

It was silly, but just what I needed to restore some perspective to my troubled mind.

Below is the video, but be warned, it does contain some inappropriate material of the late-night variety. The bit about health care starts at about 1:30 of the clip.

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Still Quiet

Remember this post? Well, March is holding steady as continued calm and quiet. It's been nice. April through December are going to be pretty much non-stop big stuff, so I'm thoroughly enjoying a month of nothing much to write about.

Well, not nothing. I did run a half-marathon last weekend, but somehow, and I know this sounds so weird (it is) or amazing (it isn't-it's just my thing) or whatever, but a half-marathon is a very do-able distance for me. It actually feels kinda good. Just enough of a sense of "Wow, I really did that!" but not a killer like the full marathon.  I didn't  train that hard or well (we'll say it's because of the snow, wink, wink), so it wasn't my fastest ever, but it was fun. I have no ambitions about being a fast runner, I'm just trying to keep myself healthy, so the time didn't bother me a bit. I didn't even wear a watch, which was very freeing.  The couple of days right before it, I was really nervous because of the lack of training, but it was a really nice day. The run went well, I didn't bonk (if you're not a runner, it's just what it sounds like-your whole system just shuts down and you can almost hear an audible bonking sound), and I've only been marginally sore. My favorite part was seeing the Capitol Building right at sunrise. It was spectacular. I really did like running through the great city of Washington D.C., especially with a police officer standing by approximately every 50 feet at all the blocked intersections. And of course, I was running with friends. Can't beat that.

The same day, I took my percussionist son to see STOMP! at the Hippodrome in Baltimore. Man alive was that fun. If you ever have the chance, run, don't walk and all that. Fun for the whole family. It is physical comedy combined with percussion and it is just amazing. I would see it again in a heartbeat.  Even the 13-year old was really impressed. 

This week I've mostly been knitting madly on a contract piece that is not hard, but it is, and I'm quoting the designer here, "A boatload of knitting."  It's not bad work considering I can sit around in my jammies all day still be making progress. So, I've been trying to get in 4-6 hours a day while listening to this version of Jane Eyre on audiobook and catching up on the DVR shows. We just got a magical disc for our Wii so now we can stream Netflix right to the TV, so let the knitting continue and the instant movie gratification begin.

Lacrosse practice starts tomorrow, hopefully, if the weather cooperates, and in the evening, my only and therefore favorite daughter is going to the first of possibly many sweet sixteen parties. It's that year for her and her pals. This one is a semi-formal affair at a local swanky restaurant. I hope it is a lot of fun for her. She is the opposite of semi-formal and swanky, so for her sweet sixteen, I might be able to talk her into a barbecue in the backyard with games on the trampoline. We'll see.

So, there you go, a whole lot of nothing. But that's life and as it so often happens, even though there are all the usual frustrations and stupid moments, and several times a day when I'm certain that I'm the worst mother on the planet, and moments of discouragement and extreme goofiness, overall I am obligated by my good fortune to declare that Life is Good.  I know I say that all the time, but that's really why I write this blog, to help me look at life in a way that makes it all worthwhile. 

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A Three-book Week

I used to be a Reader, with a capital R. I majored in literature two different universities. I defined myself by my reading. It was my joy, my escape,  my window to the universe,  my alternate universe when I got sick of looking at this one, and all that other stuff that Readers say. I often read 3-4 novels a week.  Not so much any more. Now I am lucky to read the 20 or so books per year that get assigned by the two book groups to which I belong. So, to get to the end of a week and have, by the skin of my teeth, finished two book group books ON TIME, plus an extra book just for the heck of it, feels really good. They were about as different as three books can be, and I could actually keep straight which one was which, which bodes well for my cognitive abilities, since sometimes I worry that I don't read as much anymore because my poor brain just can't handle it.

Anyway,  here are my reviews of the three books:

Sugar
Bernice McFadden
Genre: Adult Fiction, Contemporary, African American
You Might Like This Book: If you are interested in stories about women and loss, friendships between women or accounts about post-WW2, segregated southern America with a focus on the challenges of broken families and identity crises exacerbated by the legacy of slavery, war and poverty.

So, yeah, this is not, as they say at the movies, The Feel Good Story of the Summer.  While it contains beautiful writing,  it is also intense, ugly at times, filled with in-your-face violence, profanity and sexual slang, and sadly, not the most compellingly constructed story that I've ever read. In fact, it reminded me a lot of a John Grisham novel in terms of the setting and descriptions, except the author was trying to make it clear that her book is Art, not just pop fiction. For me, the Art was a bit contrived.

It is the story of a woman called Sugar who is trying to figure out who she is. She never knew her parents, in fact was abandoned as a baby and raised in a whorehouse. She lives with emptiness inside and very, very few happy memories as she makes her way as a prostitute. Hers truly is a tragic life.   The other main character is Pearl, a straight-laced and kind-hearted older woman who has experienced devastating loss and lives with a large missing piece in her own life.  Pearl and Sugar find each other and for a time, there is great hope that the unlikely friendship will yield true change and emotional abundance for both of them.  For a time.

The story is set against the goings on of a small southern town populated by the posterity of slaves trying to cope not only with life in segregated America, but also with the after effects of WW2. The people of the town serve to frame and highlight the process of Pearl and Sugar coming together and all the clashes that their different lives and values cause.

In the end, this book continues tragic. Perhaps the author fancies it on a Shakespearean level, but not for me. I don't always need a book to have a happy ending, but I do like for the character arc to have some forward motion. This ride is more like a boomerang.  If it were cathartic and authentic in the feel of the ending, I think I wouldn't mind so much. Sometimes a good tragedy really serves to clear the mind and uplift in a sort of backwards way.  Unfortunately for me, this one just sputters out, and I found myself unbelieving and frustrated rather than sighing and crying. 

A Curse Dark As Gold
Elizabeth Bunce
Genre: YA fiction, Historical Fantasy, Fairy Tale Retelling
You Might Like This Book: If you enjoy Fairy Tales, strong female characters, imaginative settings and stories about recovering from loss.

This is a re-telling of the story of Rumpelstiltskin and it has a lot of the most important elements from that classic old tale, with some twists and a lot more detail.  There is a poor miller and his daughter, and an odd little magical dude,  but there's no king, just creditors to pay as the mill threatens to go under or be sold.

I really liked this book. I could imagine the setting very clearly, so the author really shone at that kind of writing. It was definitely full of misfortunes for the poor miller's daughter, thus as a heroine, she has her work cut out for her. Her flaws serve to draw the story out and occasionally get a bit tiresome, but for the most part I was really cheering for her to win in the end.

This one is kind of a no-brainer for me because on the whole, I like reinterpretations of fairy tales. I was a devourer of Grimm and Andersen as a kid-I just loved them and read and re-read them into my late teens. I'm appalled by all the desire to whitewash and sanitize them. I was never terrorized for a second. They were, after all, FAIRY tales, not Truth tales, for heaven's sake. Anyway, with all those deliciously rich tales firmly in my memory, it is really a pleasure to step back in that world, especially when someone has taken the time that Bunce has to draw in all the detail and make a world worth escaping to. This is her first novel, and I will be looking for other things from her pen.

American On Purpose
Craig Ferguson
Genre: Adult, Memoir
You Might Like This Book: If you're a fan of Ferguson on the Late Late Show, or celebrity memoirs in general, or you are interested in what drives a middle-class Scottish guy to become a full-fledged American citizen, or you enjoy stories of getting past addiction.

I do like Craig Ferguson on the Late Late Show. I have fairly frequent bouts of vampirism, where I'm not really having trouble sleeping, I just like to stay up late and get things done, then nap the next day. So, I discovered Craig a few years ago and enjoy his brand of comedy, plus, as Craig himself observes, American women love an accent. It is so true. You can find full episodes on cbs.com, but watch with your eyes wide open-this is the Late, Late Show after all-there's a reason it's on at 12:30am.

So, the book. It is really quite a good read, with plenty of Craig's wry humor and lots of stories from his life. He is brutally honest, which I admire and he has been through the ringer, so he has a lot to be honest about. He speaks of the effects of WW2 on Scotland and how it affected his parents lives as well as his own, even though he was born in the 60's.  He speaks of his parents having to work so hard just to give their kids a better life than they had as children. He speaks of starting to drink as a teen and being a full alcoholic by his early twenties.  Sad.

He then tells how he turned his life around and got sober, and all through it he reminds the reader that this whole path is leading him to America. He gets there in the end, of course, and the last few pages of the book beautifully sum up the rest of the story.

I found this a little more authentic than the usual celebrity memoir, mostly because of his writing skills and his humility.  He managed to describe his most important relationships with women, most of which didn't work out, without vilifying the women and in fact making them seem quite heroic and wonderful. He fully acknowledges his responsibility for his life. Even though most of the book is about his ride into and then out of addiction, it all comes together and inspires admiration and understanding.  Plus he likes Mormons, so what's not to love?

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The Liberation of the Toes

They're not pretty (I'm going to get a pedicure after my marathon this weekend) but they're free! Those are my toes, in the sunshine, next to the tiny green shoots of my daylilies.  I think that Spring might actually be coming!

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Blogging Madness!

I thought I'd write a bit about where else you can find me in the blogging world. I have so many interests, and I'm working hard on all of them, so why not share?  For the past 6 weeks or so, I've been posting every other day to a professional knitting blog called Two Sides of the Same Stitch. I'm working with a friend, Gwen Bortner, who I met while teaching knitting at national conferences. We found each other to be simpatico and discovered that we shared a deep, geeky love of the technical aspects of knitting, so we decided to write about it. We're just getting going and trying to shape the real focus of what we want to accomplish, but I'm excited about it and enjoying it very much.

I also keep a personal knitting blog called Knitting Inspiration, which has taken a back seat as I've tried to be really consistent posting to the other one. I do still like the idea of just writing about knitting without any professional aim, plus this is where I share my personal projects.  I will get back to it.

And just today, in response to a couple of recent inquiries about my photography, I decided to  make a real photography blog. I've been trying to get a pro site polished enough to go fully live for a long time now and have not enjoyed the process. But blogging I know like the back of my hand. So, in an hour or so, I now have a place to go to record my photo work, to show it to people who are interested and to collect links to articles and ideas from the web that have been helpful to me.  You're welcome to check it out and share it. It's called, funnily enough, Kellie Nuss Photography.  I will keep working on my other site, and maybe if I get to a point when I really want to make photography a competitive business instead of something I like to share with friends, I'll be more motivated to get the site rolling. I'm actually good with the way things are, though. It feels right.

I've thought about a book blog, but right now I'm just not reading enough to warrant it. I'm a lightweight in terms of numbers of books read, plus with my jump-in-with-both-feet personality, I'd want to join challenges and read everyone else's book blog, etc., and I don't want to take the time for that, as worthwhile as it would be. So, I'll keep posting my occasional book reviews on my sidebar. Though I probably won't get any better at using goodreads or shelfari,  I do like writing the occasional review to gather my thoughts about a particular book, but that's about the extent of it.

So for now, there I am. All over the place.  If you get tired of reading my actual thoughts, the TMI ones that are found here, then feel free to take a break and read my thoughts about other subjects.

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Procrastination

I'm a long-time subscriber to the ideas of Flylady, aka Marla Cilley and before that the Sidetracked Home Executives, aka, Pam and Peggy, from whence came Flylady's system. While neither of the above organizational systems works perfectly for me, they have made a difference and I use versions of the ideas contained therein in my everyday life.

So, today is the day set aside for me to move things off of my to-do list. It is Anti-procrastination Day.  I procrastinate for various reasons:

• I don't like doing it-it's just not fun.
• I feel overwhelmed by it-like I'll never get it right so why bother?
• I haven't owned it as my responsibility-I feel like someone else, such as my husband or kids, should take care of it.
• I've worked hard on other things, so I can let this thing slide. 
• I'm just plain tired and can't muster the energy to do it. 

So, when things fall into this category,  doing something for just a few minutes (15 minutes is the Flylady way), helps me get around a lot of the above self-defeating dialogues.  What usually happens is that knowing that I've only required of myself 15 minutes of cleaning or filing or appointment-making or whatever the task might be, I'm able to circumvent the thought processes that cause me to feel trapped by stuff like this, and I jump in more willingly. Then I almost always just finish it up, even if it takes more than 15 minutes. The amazing thing is how little time most things take-that's the biggest lesson I've learned. For example, I can clean an entire bathroom in about 5-7 minutes on average-a good, thorough clean, not just a once-over (The books and ideas from Jeff Campbell of Speed Cleaning have also been a huge  help to me). So, I don't hate that job any more. I do it while I'm performing my own personal ablutions, either in the morning or the evening. It has become so routine that I hardly think about it any more. Therein lies the power of routine, and so today, I'll try to get through my list of things that I often procrastinate doing for any or all of the above reasons.

Included are:

1. Making 6 doctor's appointments (I don't really like making phone calls)
2. Starting a contract knitting project in earnest (It took 2 hours just to wind the yarn, but that's done so I'm ready to go)
3. Getting some things listed on ebay (so many details-the photos, the pricing, ack!)
4. Finishing last year's filing and solidifying this year's system. (I know, it's March already.)

If I can get all that done, it will be a good day. Some things will be quick, and others not so quick, but I'll keep listening to Harry Potter 7 to keep me going and have the satisfaction of a slightly shorter list at the end of the day.  

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Not a Manic Monday, for a change

Today was blissfully quiet. I'm feeling a bit off, like maybe I'm trying to come down with something, and it was so nice to have time for a nap, time to fold laundry and actually put it away, time to listen to my book while puttering around, etc. (I'm listening to HP and the Deathly Hallows-it's like I'm reading it for the first time-wonderful stuff) I planned out some upcoming posts for my new knitting blog, finally got all the suitcases back in storage from my trip, and a bunch of other little things. It was nice.

Life goes through cycles and I've just finished with such a crazy, non-routine month. Right now, March is shaping up to be rather calm.  There are no scheduled days off school, we aren't getting ready for any big travel during spring break, wrestling is over, and the calendar looks, well, just normal. Sure, there are doctor's appointments and lacrosse starting up and all that, but nothing huge. Sometimes huge is good because it energizes. But sometimes regular and medium are really great because you get that margin back around the edges of your life. You have time to get the papers filed and to occasionally vacuum the whole house and all that other stuff that gets thrown to the bottom of the list when things are huge and crazy all the time.

Here's to March both coming AND going like a lamb, regardless of the weather.

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Earthquake in Chile: My Experience

What a week. I had a wonderful time, but I have never been so grateful in my life to get back to my little house and my family. When I walked in the house on Monday night, it was the most wonderful, palpable feeling of relief.  I've had a hard time writing about it because I've felt like I should filter certain things, but then when I started writing the whole story, it just came out. It's personal and has religious content, but it is recorded fully.

Here is what happened. Part of this is excerpted and modified from another blog I keep, so I apologize if you somehow read both of them:

By way of a little bit of explanation,  a basic tenet of my faith is missionary work, because we want to share what to us is good news-that there is hope for this crazy world and that people can find happiness even when life is hard. It is a major focus and considered to be a basic responsibility of a faithful member of the the church. So, I willingly support my kids serving missions, even going far away with limited contact for two years.  It is an act of faith and also love, wanting everyone to have the chance to hear this truth. Right now, my second-oldest son happens to be in Chile.  So, two Sundays ago, I was attending church in Scottsdale Arizona while visiting my Aunt. This congregation was talking about a focus on praying for missionaries and missionary work.  I had what I would call a spiritual experience. What that means is that a calm, good feeling came over me and information and ideas flooded my mind. I call it a spiritual experience because I believe the thoughts and information came from a divine source and enhanced and clarified the workings of my own mind. A series of images formed and I became aware of the reality that all over the world at any given time, many, many faithful people are praying for the safety and well-being of the missionaries. We're talking millions of people.  I felt a powerful feeling of absolute calm about my son being so far away (about 5000 miles). I had a very specific sense that he was safe and protected.  I shared my thoughts with my son in my weekly letter and he agreed-he felt safe as a missionary and he personally had no fear of anything that might happen to him. That was all. I tucked the experience away in my heart and mind and went about my business.

Nearly a week later, on Saturday Feb. 27, while teaching at a knitting conference in California,  I got the phone call at 1 am  from my oldest son letting me know about the earthquake in Chile.  I checked the news and found out Johnathan is living about 200 miles from the epicenter, but I didn't know any more. I pondered the situation and immediately my experience the previous Sunday came to my mind. Thus, I was not inclined to panic and went back to sleep after about a half hour.  My roommate, rather than being annoyed the timing of the call, was utterly kind and supportive.  Later on, I went to the hotel gym alone to run and began to feel a sense of distraction and anxiety. I wondered how I would get through a full day of teaching with this on my mind.  Almost immediately,  I started getting texts and emails and phone calls from friends and family all over the country who remembered that Johnathan was there. The faint fluttering of anxiety was quieted knowing that I wasn't alone in this, even though I was a continent away from my husband and other kids.  At this moment, when I was calm, thoughts of the assurance I had received the previous week came to mind. Then, word spread among the people I was working with, and throughout the day,  each sincere inquiry about how I was doing and whether I'd heard anything helped me to keep my head on straight. I still wasn't feeling any inclination to panic, but I was feeling the heaviness of the the reality of a loved one in danger that I could neither control nor remedy. That afternoon, we got official word from the church that all the missionaries were safe and accounted for. Friends were there to support me as the tears finally came. Sunday, Johnathan called and again, I had friends right there who felt my relief and rejoiced that all really was well for my boy. All that difficult day, far away from any family, I never felt alone or truly upset.  When my human mind would jump to the logical conclusion of fear, the love of others and the power of my previous experience combined to keep me fully functional and focused on the moment at hand.

Again, I call this a spiritual experience because I was able to act with abilities beyond my normal, physical tendencies and capacities. I'm a worst-case-scenario worry wart. Even though I can stay calm on the outside, I tend to fall apart on the inside and have all the symptoms of an anxiety attack. I believe at this time I was blessed to be able to cope with what might have become debilitating worry.  The blessing came through the personal experience the Sunday before and through the actions of many caring people and the quickness of modern technology allowing for lots of contact and good thoughts to get to me. Amazingly, my son is completely safe. He had a wild experience, running out of a galloping house in the middle of the night with the earth moving powerfully enough to rip power lines apart, but his attitude is good and he is ready to help others in need.

So now, a few days after the fact, home again with my family, the only thing I am feeling is gratitude. For Johnathan, for family and friends, for facebook and cell phones and instant information, and for lots of other things. Of course my heart aches for those who did not have the same outcome as Johnathan, but I know that he will never take this experience for granted as he rolls up his sleeves and  works to ease the devastation.  I'm grateful again that he is in a position to do so.

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